Five Exciting Women to Watch This Spring on TV: The Killing’s Mireille Enos

By the end of the first season of The Killing—the part–Law & Order SVU, part–Twin Peaks, part–Girl with the Dragon Tattoo murder mystery on AMC—the steely detective Sarah Linden had been brought to the brink of sanity by the still-unsolved murder of teenager Rosie Larsen. Add a season’s worth of red herrings to the mix as well as an infamous, if not somewhat flummoxing, cliffhanger in the last episode, and you have the recipe for a tense and emotional ride.

Despite the uncompromising plot twists that have become the show’s trademark, the inescapable lure of lead actress Mireille Enos, who perfectly complemented the ambient tension of the first season with an utterly engrossing performance, is the reason the series’ most dedicated fans will be tuning back in when The Killing returns for a second season next month. How, then, has the 36-year-old Enos, who was nominated for a Tony Award in 2005 for her part in the Anthony Page–directed revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, gone about tackling the role of Linden a second time around?

“It’s definitely been a lot easier,” she says in between scenes in Vancouver, British Columbia, where she is currently filming the series. (After being nominated for both an Emmy and a Golden Globe for The Killing, she is very much in demand in Hollywood and spent the last summer working on two high-profile blockbusters, alongside a roster of A-list leading men: The Gangster Squad, with Ryan Gosling and Sean Penn, and World War Z, with Brad Pitt.) “All the show’s relationships are in place,” she continues, “so we have a firmer foundation in which to dig deeper.”

To anyone who knows the plot, the idea of going deeper is a somewhat ominous piece of foreshadowing. But, unfortunately, that is as far as Enos would go in terms of revealing anything more. (“I can’t tell you that!” she exclaims when asked if there are any surprises in store.) Does Enos have any of her own theories about the character she has done such a thorough job of bringing to life? “I think Sarah is a perfectionist and cannot bear the idea of injustice,” she adds. “If I had one piece of advice for her, it’d be, ‘Be kinder to yourself.’ ”